It is meant to be an “early” night (by Berlin standards), meaning that we will go till one or two and then it will depend on the audience, the bar staff as well as ourselves if we carry on and make it a late one after all.

Incl. Praxis Record stall! check http://praxis.c8.com/shop and pick up your order at the party where you can also browse through and listen to a selection of our stock!

TALKS:
(talks will start in the early evening – a more precise time-table will be posted closer to the date – and will be free to attend.)

“Electronic and experimental music in Asia and Africa” by Cedrik Fermont
The official history of experimental and electronic music is mostly centered on developments in the “West” from the end of the 19th century through the 1960s, and yet, in 1944, the first known piece of African so-called “experimental music” was recorded by Halim El-Dabh in Cairo. This talk addresses the fact that electronic, experimental music, and by extension noise music, cannot been seen as a typically “Western” kind of music. The origins of the very notion of noise music do not entirely belong to “Western” culture, but most probably stem from technology, modernization, and often urbanism. What about non-Western composers of experimental, electronic and noise music, who have been written out of histories? Which culture(s) and which non-Western nations are they influenced by? Are they still maintained under a post-colonial cultural yoke?

“2012 IS THE SEASON FOR TREASON: An Assault on Establishment Culture in Germany” by the OKK Team Chus Martinez, Francisco José Avestruz & Otto Karl Kamal
Extending the assault on capitalist society through a radical take on Berlin Biennale 7, dOCUMENTA (13) and similar propaganda tools, the OKK Team will present their analysis of and strategies for countering these bourgeois gentrification festivals and their “activist” participants who are often sporting either extreme naivety or some “brown” (i.e. fascist) ideology. For more info go to: http://2012istheseasonfortreason.wordpress.com/

“On the Map – Control and Freedom in Geographic Information Systems” by Split Horizon
The merger of cartography, statistical analysis and database technology threatens our privacy and autonomy, while simultaneously pluralizing our consensus of what exists, or has existed, at a place. Digital map making is now a crucial form of communication, and a newly contested media that begs exploration. This talk addresses the most severe technological consequences of location tracking, while presenting creative directions, détournements, and strategies that free and open source GIS/GPS technologies now make available to the general public.

PRAXIS 49 – Bulkrate: In the Temple of the Serpent (12″ & digital)
After three digital only releases on Dark Winter and Zhark International
this is Bulkrate’s first vinyl offering. Five tracks of strong atmospheric
occult breakcore that will please the fans of Abelcain and Slutmachine
with a personal take on dark atmospherics and caustic beats.

Events:

NoiseAngriff is a night for new experimental music, noise and breakcore
taking place at Lauschangriff, Rigaerstrasse 103 in Berlin-Friedrichshain
every first and third wednesday of the month.
The first is usually dedicated more to noise and soundscapes, the third
more to different shades of “breakcore”. We also do the praxis record
stall there at each of the events. This month:

We will take part in two events of 2012 is the season for treason –
Critical reflections on BB7
taking place at okk/raum29: Prinzenallee 29, 13359 Berlin
May 5: Polaris Internationa: Art As Social Glue + Party with Praxis DJ’s
May 12: -Kavecs Projects: Third Position in Europe
-Datacide: From Subculture to Hegemony, Transversal
Strategies of the New Right in Neofolk
and Martial Industrial
More infos here:

June 9: Praxis presents a fundraiser for Datacide Twelve and a celebration
of the new record releases by Electric Kettle and Bulkrate in the space of
Subversiv e.V., Brunnenstrasse 7, Berlin-Mitte (U8 Rosenthaler Platz)
We return to Subversiv for an all night party with a massive line-up:
Electric Kettle
Bulkrate
Noize Creator
Zombieflesheater
and more!
check:http://praxis.c8.com
closer to the date!

Neurosis Orchestra and Lfo Demon are back from a mad, mad weekend in Holland. What can I say – it has been a really good time in Tilburg on the ZXZW festival. The concept behind the festival is pretty awesome: all alternative venues in town join forces to organize a massive event that lasts one week. I guess it is pretty nice for the local community as everbody collaborates on this project one time a year: representing independent culture.

Getting out of the car on friday night we were glad to get some cold beer in the backstage area to forget about the horrors of the motorway. The whole breakcore line up worked as The shape of Breakcore to Cum. Good work, Mr. Bart Hart. Of course we missed most of the acts like Doormouse, Otto von Schirach and Rioteer in the Main Hall playing over a special 8 speaker sound system. And also the sets of Assassin and FFF. Damn, all this could have been fun. So we just saw a bit of the set of Electric Kettle and Floorclearer, who played his excellent mashed up core beats. We went meanwhile on the other side of the street to the V39 venue to see a bit of Pisstank. Andi rocked the crowd with his unique Ravecore straight outta London. Back to the Kleine Zaal Ladyscraper was about to turn up the hardness factor and stood headbanging on stage. Then it was already time for me to perform as Lfo Demon. What can I say? I shouldn´t drink before going on stage. I freaked out so much and acted so stupid I couldn´t move my head for 2 days due to a massive muscle ache. Ouch! I managed to crawl off stage while Judith Priest started playing. Getting trashed, off to bed.

The next day we checked the Peter Beste exhibition. The pictures mainly originated from his book on Norwegian Black Metal which I discovered already a few weeks ago. On the other side of the gallery the Antenne/ Sam Sam store was located. I never saw the mash up of an second hand clothes store and a vinyl store before. Here it is in the Noordstraat of Tilburg: second hand clothes and all the records you ever dreamed of. I even found a copy of the “Higgins Ultra Low Track Glue Funk Hits, 1972-2006″. On the way to the next venue we saw the artist Knitta at work: Street art with Yarn. We went on to an exhibition of graphic artists who sold their posters, mainly on bands. The vegan cuisine there was the most delicious food I had in a while with grilled beetroot and pumpkin.

Further on to the European Noise Contest in the NS16 venue. We first saw Kaiserschnee who made a performance that could have been influenced straight from the writings of Theodor W. Adorno: The caged subject in the administered world. The scientist – Kaiserschnee dressed like a surgeon – as the protagonist of the blind reason raging like a madman. Subjectivity as a mimesis to the productive forces that are out of control and humans struggling with alienated labor represented by an electric oven and some bread rolls. Beyond the expectations that the proletariat was about to bake the bread Kaiserschnee put over the oven on this head. Instead of the leftwinged claim of taking over the whole bakery (as a hegelian-marxian “Aneignung” of the means of production) the fatalistic story ended with world downfall which was symbolised by the gesture of throwing the oven into the audience. It crashed on the floor and caused a short circuit, all sounds went off. Bravissimo!Kakawaka´s performance started as a caricature of a rock musician on a midi keyboard. After some stunts he undressed and under his clothes his yellow stage outfit appeared. The rest of the show reminded at some looney tunes character on acid. He played with a gigantic fork with some attached microphone. Later on the microphone was detatched to a metal joist in the room. Running on it with a sinister grin on the face and falling to the floor after a frontal collision made some more harsh noises. It was pretty interesting to see how Kakawaka played with the expectations of “being funny”, experimenting with the tipping point where the atmosphere of grotesque nonsense was about to collapse.

Oh – and there was a jury! Between a few performances a jury equiped with various characters that could be casted straight for a movie judged the performances. You remember Bob of Twin Peaks? He was one of he jurors, alongside with a woman in a leopard dress. Sitting there with a glass of red wine the jurors gave the whole event the real Eurovision Grand Prix atmosphere. Actually this was one of the most impressing events I saw in the while. I like it when the relationships between artists, audience, performance, entertainment and artwork gets fluid.

Later that day we were about to perform as Neurosis Orchestra. Playing our dark Dubstep tunes in a concert atmosphere was a new experience for us and we enjoyed it. Our songs worked well, the sound was loud and awesome and we decided after the show to work more on a hybrid between Doom Metal and Dubstep. Afterwards we talked a bit with the sound engineer about the difference between Paul Elstak and the Darkraver. We stayed in the V39 venue and watched the Japanese invasion with DJ Shabushabu and Maho Thaidisco and their pop inferno. Afterwards the sound got wilder with distorted mashcore by the USA Kings. Dj Pinchado finshed the evening with broken beats somewhere between the Agriculture and Word Sound: No 4/4 rhythms but uneven loops. We left at some point to see the rest of the DJ set of Chris Moss Acid in the “Studio”: Acid in all varieties from Luke Vibert orientated stuff to extremly broken amens at the end. Excellent set in a totally crowded venue. Off to bed.

The next morning we figured out that there wasn´t a single café or bakery open so we were lucky to get some…. well…. let´s say “breakfast” at Mc Donalds. And let´s also pretend the french fries were vegan as they might not even be vegetarian. No problem for the omnivoric part of Neurosis Orchestra.
We were sad to leave town as we were going to miss so many bands on the last day of the festival: Sun Ra Arkestra, Pelican, Torche, Cadence Weapon, Seein Red and so many more that we would have liked to see. But it´s quite a distance back to Berlin so we were glad to arrive back home in the late evening after a long car ride. Synopsis: An amazing festival with the most friendly organisers you can imagine.